1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 183 



in our memories " almighty large," for they are important 

 to the safety of our crops, and to the safety of our pockets, 

 if we are going into grass raising. 



HAY FOR MARKET. 



BY J. B. WALKER OF CONCORD, N. H. 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, — I have felt a good deal 

 of diffidence in coming down here into the very garden of 

 New England to speak to some of its best hay farmers upon 

 a subject to which they have given a life-long attention. 

 The responsibility of my mistake, if such it prove to be, 

 must be borne in part, at least, by our mutual friend the 

 secretary of your Board of Agriculture. 



I need not say that in New England the hay crop is the 

 great underlying one of our agricultural system ; that upon 

 this, directly or indirectly, rest all its various branches ; that 

 as we enlarge or diminish this, we may increase or must 

 lessen our stocks of cattle and sheep and horses ; and, further, 

 that as these vary in numbers so will vary the manurial 

 resources of our farms, and eventually the pecuniary con- 

 ditions of our pockets. We once had a sordid old fellow 

 up in New Hampshire, better off than the rest of us, who 

 was wont to say that he always put his pocket-book under 

 his pillow when he went to bed, for " he loved to lie awake at 

 night and hear his notes draw interest." But a higher 

 pleasure by far than that comes to the grass farmer in May 

 and June, as he hears in the night watches the gentle rain 

 descending from heaven upon his meadows of living green, 

 rendering soluble the plant food which they contain, that it 

 may be converted by nature's mysterious processes into 

 glorious expanses of waving grass. He feels that he is 

 co-operating with God himself in the accomplishment of a 

 worthy end. 



Our attention just now is directed forward, and it may be 

 well to note, at starting, the mark at which we now stand 

 upon the grass-growing scale ; and I am happy to congratu- 

 late the Massachusetts farmers upon having attained a higher 

 one than that occupied by those of any of her sister New 

 England States, for the former raise on an average one and 

 seven one-hundredths (1.07) of a ton per acre, affording an 



